On Saturday afternoon our dear friends janet and bevan were married after being together for almost thirty years i think. we all gathered in the gallery for a lovely casual ceremony and drinks and nibbles with sun streaming in the windows from the balcony.

jenny has the cutest array of xmas decos, this tiny little fella
travels round and round on a circular music box

this snowman is a little kit with a white sculpting clay, you

make your own snowman shape then decorate him with

the plastic bits, then he slowly melts.

below - this is what he looked like half melted minus the

bits - pretty evil eh?

anne lambert's pretty

little mini puddings

we all transferred ourselves down to the front beach cafe www.frontbeachcafe.com.au

for a glass of wine then i had a lovely hour of having my hair cut, lots of shampooing and massaging, aaah, i could sit there all day

RENE and SAYAKA arrived in the afternoon - we all had a bbq tea - it's been such a great

time with family and friends today, ren and sayaka stayed the night and freddie's made me up my own little bedroom in the back of the van, complete with rug and chairs outside in case anyone drops in . . . to the garage :0)

my son . . . and father to be rene

sayaka, gorgeous girl, with sean it's his birthday tomorrow

this is a page of sayaka's writing, figuring out possible baby names taking into account the sound of the word and how it translates into kanji - japanese characters. beautiful writing

Friday, 28 December 2012

YESTERDAY i arrived down at torquay loaded with towels from the target xmas sale. no photos, just an afternoon lying on the beach with the crew, getting sunburned and eating out at the pub. a good day.time to get up :0)

i visited dear leigh hobbs www.leighhobbs.com.au and dmetri on the way to geelong – staying with denise tonight, bbq today at nina's, it's always good to catch up with her son lee on

his trips home from the UK - that smile!

denise cooking up a storm in nina's backyard

thursdayit’s morning at denise’s – she’s still
asleep. i’m thinking i might go to the after-christmas sales on the way to
torquay today. staying with the
sisters:0)susan and sean and jenny and freddie,some beach time coming up i imagine.

goodbye to the dalton clan –
what a lovely family night we had.
kris came back to melbourne with me so the drive was a talkfest all the
way, great to have
that time with her.

I had vicki’s lovely house to stay
in christmas night, and had planned for sunny, rene and sayaka and i to have a
picnic in the gardens but it was pretty breezy so we just stayed in and opened up the doors to
the courtyard. wonderful to have
the kids with me, it’s been a year
since i’ve seen them all together.

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

I'm driving krissy down to melbourne for her flight home this morning, then rene and sayaka and sunny are coming over to vicki's, hopefully the weather will be warm enough for us to take our christmas food down to the st kilda botanical gardens.

a gift from don - beautiful poppy heads to grow - when the watering system is working

PHEWit's cooled right down. after a day of holing up with the aircon at helen and don's the weather has completely changed. yesterday was a great day here at sierra vista, with the extended dalton family, three generations celebrating patriarch john's 86th and christmas eve. no words needed

krissy

bakes

a

cake

bon and em do the pistachios

brave jen's given herself the onorous task of christmas eve dinner, christmas dinner and food for em's 30th on the 27th

Monday, 24 December 2012

WHAT A RELIEF it's cool here in the grampians after a hot hot night. left homeyesterday with next door's hoses thumbing their noses at me, me with a broken pump.i'm glad to leave it all behind for a week.loaded up the esky with ice, yabbies and fresh fruit for xmas and drove non stop to helen and don's. sadly the heat beat my esky, and the yabbies are going to be turfed out, hope there are some prawns left at the supermarket today.i'm having trouble uploading photos on this computer, will try later

Sunday, 23 December 2012

UP AT 5.30 to do a lot of watering only discover - yes, after brendan's efforts yesterday and a whole evening of ecstatically watching the sprinklers, this morning i watched the water pressure slowly die away again. left a message with brendan and drove away.anyway, after a day of driving, from 8.30 till about 3, i'm here at helen and don's, a few gin and tonics under the belt and having escaped a 40 deg day by being safely encased in the air conditioned comfort of my toyota. don had a chilled g and t waiting, and helen and i spent the afternoon playing scrabble. now it's off to bed. photos tomorrow, i have to organise getting them onto the blog from the computer here.

I'M HITTING THE ROAD today to visit helen and don in the grampians, jenny and rob in stawell, then rene and sayaka and sunny in melbourne on christmas day. high fire danger and 40 plus temperatures today so i'm leaving early. i'm leaving with the pump still not working, brendan was here again yesterday and it was glorious last night to watch all the sprinklers in action, but this morning the pressure's died away again. i'm outta here, it'll have to survive as well as it can.

Friday, 21 December 2012

look at these little fellas - the beautiful grass parrots that are here almost every day - they're the most beautiful iridescent shades of lime and turquoise on the back with a flash of orange when they fly.

i went for an early morning walk up to the thegoa lagoon and discovered another section of water - full of egrets, spoonbills and herons. it really is lovely up there, i'm only starting to explore the area, there are great places to go in all directions.

the trees along the river are amazing - huge beautiful old redgums

it was weird this evening - about two million corellas came and settled in the trees all around the house, every so often they'd all take off, wheel around and settle again, very alfred hitchcock.

and of course there was the daily water drama

the pressure disappeared again, hardly any water pumping out of the river, brendan came again, it was fine when he left and now, at 9.30p.m. i've realised the automatic system hasn't come on - boy am i sick of this. and it's nearly christmas, probably can't get anything done now so everything will dry out while i'm down south for a week.

I guess i just have to get used to the idea that i'll be dealing with water issues every day for as long as i live here. the whole place is all about water and heat. THE PUMP stopped yesterday so the previous night's automatic watering hadn't happened.another visit from brendan to lift the pipe into the river off the riverbed where it hadsettled and gathered sediment from the bottom.

he managed to stay dry - very agile :o)

***

LAST NIGHT i attended an opening at stefano's gallery 25 in deakin avenue. photographs by frank zaetta, a mildura institution who'd taken portraits of just about everyone in town in his life here as a professional photographer and larger than life character.

Julia Zaetta, frank's daughter painted a colourful picture of her father as she described his life as photographer, migrant, family man, musician, blasphemer (in the grand italian style) and local eccentric - a very affectionate and funny opening speech

when i heard julie mention doreen civelli as a relative, i remembered that i'd met

zaettas before in melbourne with my dear friend denise civelli - turns out julia is

About Me

day to day life on the mighty murray surrounded by huge redgums, amazing waterbirds and all that serenity. i'm into my sixth year now - settled in completely and loving it. about to totally renovate the large garage into a weather controlled fully lined studio EEHAH!!
so much beauty here to enjoy every day.